Editor’s Note: This week, “The Wall of Separation” blog is featuring the essays and videos submitted by the winners of Americans United’s 2025 AU Student Contest, which asked high school and college students to reflect on this two-part prompt: How and why do religious and/or nonreligious groups, on their own or together, advocate for the separation of church and state? How have they been successful, and what does their example mean for present and future advocacy for the separation of church and state? You can find all of the winning essays and videos here. Submissions do not necessarily reflect the views of Americans United.
Two hundred and thirty-nine years ago, 39 men signed the document that would dictate the rights of millions of Americans in the centuries to come – the U.S. Constitution. Four years following that, the First Amendment was ratified. It stated: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This amendment has played an integral part in religious freedom.
The phrase “separation of church and state” first came from lawyer and minister Roger Williams, a Christian activist for religious equality. He called for a “wall or hedge of separation” between religion and government because he believed merging the two would cause corruption. In Rhode Island, he built a community in which laws and religion remained unentangled. People of all religions or non-religions lived with equal rights in the colony he founded, which he named Providence.
It is him we can thank for the First Amendment. His advocacy for a secular government directly influenced the Constitution and the First Amendment, as his founding of Providence heavily inspired authors of the Constitution. I strongly believe without his precedent, our country’s laws on religious freedom would be more primitive.
Eighty-five years ago in 1940, Jehovah’s Witnesses, a subset of Christianity that was founded in the 1870s in Pittsburgh, Pa., challenged the compulsory flag salute law. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe the kingdom of Christ will replace human government, so they avoid association with the government. They have faced legal barriers in following their religion, as seen in Minersville School District v. Gobitis and West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette.
In the 1940 Minersville School District v. Gobitis court case, two Jehovah’s Witnesses school students from Pennsylvania were expelled because they refused to salute the American flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. It went against their religion. Their father, Walter Gobitas, filed a case against the school district for denying his children a free education. The Supreme Court ruled that the pledge and salute to the flag must remain compulsory, with a penalty of expulsion for students and a fine and even a month in jail for parents if they refused to obey.
In the following West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette court case three years later, this decision was rechallenged. The previous ruling from Minersville School District v. Gobitis was overruled. Justice Robert H. Jackson of the Supreme Court said on the topic of this ruling: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in matters of politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion[,] or force citizens to confess by word their faith therein.”
These Jehovah’s Witnesses families’ struggles contributed immensely to forming a law that affects our country’s children – and their perception of free speech – to this day. It enforces a sense of autonomy for students who do not believe in the Christian god despite the dichotomy of a Christian god being mentioned when pledging allegiance to the symbol of our government. Still, it was a step in the right direction.
Forty years ago, another religious group called Wicca fought for its religious freedom in Herbert Daniel Dettmer v. Robert Landon, Director of Corrections. Wicca is a pagan faith and more of an individualistic religion, as it has a wide range of beliefs instead of a sacred text. Because it does not have a clearly outlined code of belief, U.S. courts have struggled in defining it as a religion.
This point was demonstrated when, in 1985, an inmate asked for accoutrements he needed for his religious practices while in prison. The warden denied his request because these items were unauthorized. After much back and forth, still uninformed on why the items were a security risk, the inmate appealed to the fourth level of the grievance procedure. He then filed a legal action pursuant with the claim that the Virginia Department of Corrections had deprived him of his religious freedom. The district court ruled that Wicca is a religion, and the inmate had the right to access the items he needed for a religious ritual. On appeal, the government later declared that Wicca was not a religion, and therefore did not fall under the protection of the first amendment, but the case is still considered a win for religious freedom. [Editor’s note: The appeals court agreed that Wicca is a religion, but that Dettmer was still not entitled to access the requested religious items.]
This court case challenged the definition of a religion and how far, exactly, religious freedom went. After all, everyone has the right to practice their religion, even in jail. It opened the path for more court cases fighting for Wicca’s recognition as a religion.
Despite this effort of people fighting for religious neutrality and the freedom to practice their beliefs freely, bias and discrimination still exists.
For example, when one of my aunts was still in school, she was bullied so badly for wearing a headscarf – her schoolmates would even go so far as to pull it off – that she would take it off when she arrived at school. When my hijabi mother visited the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), a government-run building, for her driving license, two employees made jokes about her hijab when they thought she couldn’t hear. More recently, after President Donald Trump was elected for the first time, one of my friends who attended public school was insulted and called a terrorist due to the Islamophobia Trump reignited. If people can’t respect other’s beliefs in the place where children are sent to learn and where they spend their formative years, what hope do we have? If the man responsible for millions of lives can speak of other beliefs so hatefully, what hope do we have?
But we should have hope. Throughout all of these experiences in history, from the founding of Providence to the court cases for free exercise of religion, one fact has remained constant: Americans fighting for their religious rights. America’s government is far from perfect, but these examples give me hope that there will always be someone to hold its actions accountable.
